China uranium plan to test FIRB

A Chinese state-owned enterprise plans to buy uranium projects across Australia in a potential test of Canberra’s foreign investment rules.

Chairman of the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), Sun Qin, said China needed to secure greater supplies of uranium and would look to step up exploration activities in Australia, Africa and central Asia.

“We have no worries about uranium resource reserves as we will enhance efforts on exploring the resources both at home and abroad," he said.

Australia exports uranium to China but any move by Beijing to buy into local projects may meet Australian political opposition given the sensitivity of uranium mining and suspicion of Chinese SOEs.

Opposition Leader
Tony Abbott
said on a recent visit to Beijing he was opposed to Chinese SOEs buying operational businesses in Australia, potentially leaving the door open for uranium exploration.

Related Quotes

Company Profile

The federal government has said the Foreign Investment Review Board will consider applications on a case-by-case basis.

China restarted its civilian nuclear energy program last month, after the construction of new reactors was suspended following the Fukushima reactor meltdown in Japan in 2011.

China has 15 nuclear power plants and a further 26 are being built. It is expected to shortly announce plans to begin building a “handful" of reactors in coastal provinces before extending the program into the country’s west.

Mr Sun said half of China’s nuclear fuel could be obtained from within the country but the remainder would be sourced offshore.

The head of the FIRB, Brian Wilson, warned last month that hostile attitudes towards Chinese investment could hurt the Australian economy unless the tensions eased.

While Chinese investment, particularly in agriculture, was a contentious issue, he said, the public would come to accept it as they had investment from Japan.

Former prime minister
John Howard
delivered the keynote speech at a summit of business leaders in Kunming in south-west China in late July, and said foreign investment was part of the progress of globalisation and should be welcomed without any sense of conditionality, provided it complied with reasonable laws of the host nation.